Australian Music Is Bloody Great: King Stingray

Exposure is more important than ever and ironically harder to come by in today’s media landscape. Amrap – the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project - offers Australian musicians a pathway to airplay from the hundreds of community stations who have long championed Australian music of all stripes. a great network encouraging nearly 6,000,000 listeners each week to support Australian music. Go to amrap.org.au to get your music to thousands of presenters using the site each month to find new Australian music.

Amrap started a radio series in 2020 called Australian Music Is Bloody Great with Australian artists presenting their favourite recent Australian music. These shows are made available to all community radio stations across the country. Australian Music Is Bloody Great features a rotating roster of Aussie music faves presenting their handpicked selections with previous guests ranging from Dune Rats to Sampa The Great to Phil Jameison. 

Pilerats are proud to team up with Amrap to keep you posted with the Australian Music Is Bloody Great series. The series has wrapped up for 2022, but over summer we will be diving into some of our favourite selectors before the 2023 edition kicks off.

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This article originally appeared on amrap.org.au on August 5 2022

Written by Joshua Kreusler 

King Stingray is the result of a lifelong friendship. Growing up together in Yirrkala in North-East Arnhem Land, founding members Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu (frontman) and Roy Kellaway (guitar) have been playing and making music together for as long as they can remember, no doubt encouraged by their relatives who just happened to be in the legendary Yothu Yindi. The band seamlessly blend ancient indigenous melodies with surf, indie and funk influences to create a unique sound that they call 'Yolŋu surf-rock'. With their self-tiled debut album out last week, here's drummer Campbell Messer turning the spotlight on some recent Australian music faves.

Ball Park Music - Weirder & Weirder (Six Boroughs Media)

I love this song. I understand this song to talk about how, with every year you get older, life throws a little more at you. Life becomes a little more complex. I think the music also reflects that. In the second verse you can hear drums filling the whole way through, which is unusual. You've also got chaotic production and these layered vocals. It really does, musically, get a little weirder and weirder as it progresses. We were lucky enough to support Ball Park Music on the Weirder and Weirder tour, we played seven shows with them, and they have a reputation for being Australia's nicest band and  I can tell you that they truly live up to that. Coming in as a young support band, they showed us a level of welcome which was just incredible. They are truly lovely people and we will forever be grateful.

Great Gable - Sidewalk (Rainbow Valley Records)

I love the lush production, the doubled vocals and the general mood of this song. They're encouraging lyrics. I keep it in my eyes shut category, by which I mean headphones on, late at night . .  just lay there and smile.

Andrew Gurruwiwi Band - Gatjumak (Independent)

This Brisbane band recently announced that they are going on hiatus after almost two decades of thrashing around Brisbane, Australia and the globe. Violent Soho are one of those bands that are a bit of a household name in this country. They've been a great inspiration to a lot of punk rock bands that have come out of Australia in the past ten years. They've released four albums and I'm not sure whether this new track is going to be part of a fifth. I would love it to be that way. 

King Stingray - Let’s Go (Cooking Vinyl Australia)

Let's Go refers to the central Arnhem highway. The central Arnhem road is sort of the road that gets you into Arnhem land and all the places which are sung about, the towns and communities, all branch off that road. This is the road that Roy, Dimathaya and Yirrŋa would travel when they were going fishing, hunting or going to the footy or whatever it was. For me, I take the lyrics to be about exploring - going out to the beach, to the mountains, to the lake or a place where you like to go and camp and sleep under the stars and be with your friends and those who you love the most. It is about celebrating nature, getting lost and having fun along the way.